


it's about the journey

by floatingcastle



Category: A3! (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Mankai Company, Crying, Existential Angst, Freelance Artist Kazunari, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Rain, Taxi Driver Tsuzuru, TsuzuKazuWeek_2021
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-16 07:28:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28827423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/floatingcastle/pseuds/floatingcastle
Summary: On a rainy day, Kazunari meets an old acquaintance. Life is better when you have a friend.
Relationships: Minagi Tsuzuru/Miyoshi Kazunari
Comments: 12
Kudos: 28
Collections: TsuzuKazu Week 2021





	it's about the journey

**Author's Note:**

> disclaimer: portrayal of taxi driving as a job may be inaccurate

"Yeah, totes, I gotcha! Mhm."

Kazunari's voice is full of cheer, grinning even though the caller can't see his face, but his face drops as soon as his commissioner hangs up. 

He snaps his phone shut. 

Sitting in a trendy cafe like this suits him, right? And the menu options here have always been prime material for his Instablam, so he's a regular customer at this point. The atmosphere suits him, right?

He tugs his scarf a bit looser, and a chill wind sweeps in just to remind him why he's still sitting here even though they're closing in twenty minutes. The employees are looking at him like they're waiting for him to leave and stop being a bother, and their gazes eat away at his skin like he smothered himself in pineapple. (Pineapples are acidic.) 

The rain and cold haven't let up since he left this morning. In the entranceway of his apartment, he felt like he was forgetting something, but y'know, it's probably not important if you can't remember even after thinking super duper hard about it, yeah? Or maybe he's just kind of an airhead like that to forget his umbrella even after checking the weather forecast to dictate what he was gonna wear. Either or! 

A polite mask covers the waiter's face when they approach him a second later. 

"Sir, just so you know, the cafe is closing soon."

"Ahaha, O-M-G. I look like such a goof here, don't I? I'll be out of your hair in such a quickie I swear."

"Thank you, sorry. Excuse me."

Kazunari smiles and waves at them as they walk back behind the cafe counter with as much enthusiasm as he would if he were saying goodbye to a best friend. Not that he has any of those, haha! 

He starts shoving his stuff into the bright yellow tote bag he brings everywhere. Laptop, check. Phone, check. Tablet, check. Sketchbook, check. All good. 

Despite his personality, or maybe because of his personality, Kazunari is a self-conscious person. Imposing on other people drains his battery and confidence faster than he can snap his fingers. 

It's not a bad thing to wanna be surrounded by smiles, right? 

He shakes his head, stands from his table with a clatter, and leaves the cafe. 

"Ah, crap."

The awning in front of the cafe does little to protect him from the downpour, which is angled sadistically right into his face. He presses his back to the doors of the cafe and tries to protect himself from the rain by lifting his bag over his head—wait, that's a bad idea! He has electronics in there!

Since the devices are more important, he places the bag behind his back for protection and resigns himself to getting drenched. His scarf is too thin and sticks to his neck. 

Rainy days like this are... not his favorite, to put it kindly. And it doesn't feel good to admit that, because some of his friends love rainy days more than anything, and he would be such a downer mentioning that the overcast clouds and incessant sound of rain sap him of all energy. Gotta get that Vitamin D, yo. 

The heavens spare some mercy on his emo soul. A taxi pulls up in front of the cafe. 

Kazunari waves at the driver through the window with his entire arm, jumping up and down. He looks like a contestant on a game show trying to get picked for an answer. 

"Heyheyhey, over here! Can I get a ride, pretty please?"

The taxi driver waves him over, and that's all the signal he needs to dash through the rain and throw himself into the empty backseats. 

"Oh my god, you have no idea how much you just saved me. I could kiss you right now."

Weird thing to say to a taxi driver. Kazunari tries to laugh off his own thoughtless words. 

"Shoot, I'm getting your seats all wet, I'm super sorry. Do you have a towel? This is totally my B."

The taxi driver gives him a dry smile, then sighs. He looks younger than Kazunari imagines from people in this job, although the eyebags age him a bit. Underneath that, though, he's kind of cute. Might even be around the same age as him. 

His roots are visible, dark against his scalp, like he can’t be bothered to keep up with maintaining it. Kazunari’s eyes draw out the spiky silhouette of his hair before following the lines back down to his eyes. Green, bright and determined, even framed with exhaustion. 

Maybe you can’t actually tell what someone’s personality is like just by looking into their eyes, but Kazunari’s a romantic and an artist. And in this line of work, it’s more important to believe in sentiment like that rather than worry about whether it’s actually true. 

"Yeah, I've got a towel. One second."

Mr. Taxi Boy digs through the compartment at his feet and comes up with a towel. Specifically, a towel covered in art of a popular children's cartoon mascot. 

"Are you a big Doraemon fan? That's way cute."

"How old do you think I am? It's my little brother's, okay?"

The laugh that bubbles up from his chest is a welcome respite from his mood just a minute ago. He makes dramatic grabby hands at the towel, to which the driver laughs at (success!) before handing it off. 

"Anyway, where are you headed?"

"Oh! One sec, lemme double check the address so I don't get it wrong."

He pulls his phone out from his bag and clicks it on. The screen stays black. Oh no.

"Cellphone gods, please look upon me with favor and I'll never drop you in the toilet again." 

He tries to click it on once more. The screen stays black. Kazunari stares at his own dopey reflection and purses his lips. 

Mr. Taxi Boy is looking at him like he's a weirdo, concerned, baffled, maybe regretting letting this wet paripi into his car. 

"Is your phone out of battery? I have a charger if you need one."

"Nope. This little queen was definitely charged a few secs ago. I'm pretty sure that, like, it got messed up from rainwater. Major L on my part."

"Major… okay? Uh, anyway, sorry about that."

“Aw, it’s not your fault, cutie.”

Mr. Cute Taxi Boy leans his elbow on the steering wheel as he cranes his neck to look back at Kazunari with a wry smile. 

“…You know I’m a guy, right?”

“Guys can be cute! I’m cute! You’re cute! We’re living in the modern times, gender equality and stuff means that guys can be cuties.”

“I mean, I guess you’re right. It just caught me by surprise. Hey, are you gonna be okay without your phone? …You do know where you’re headed?”

Kazunari flashes a peace sign and a catty smile. 

“Nope. My client is totes gonna blacklist me for being late to this meeting.” Maybe he's exaggerating a little, but honestly who knows? Artists have a reputation for being uppity about this sort of thing and Kazunari’s met several that do in fact live up to the stereotype. 

“Oof. That’s rough.” 

“Don’t even worry about it!” 

“I don’t know how much this could help here, but I do understand. I’ve been in situations like yours more times than I can count on both hands.”

Kazunari pauses in toweling himself off and tilts his head, gesturing for Mr. Cute Taxi Boy to keep going. 

“I mean, I don’t know what you do exactly? But I’ve done a lot of jobs. And customers kind of suck.” Pause. “No offense.”

With a laugh, he replies, “None taken. You’re, like, totally right about customers sucking. Like, one time this old dude came into my studio and stomped on my paintings because they weren’t exactly what he imagined.”

“That’s so fucked up.” 

“Right? And I’m just standing there like, OK boomer, you can’t have your money back even if you hate these? Paintings are expensive af and I spent like weeks working on them?”

Cute Taxi Boy shakes his head in sympathy. They’re both smiling now, just sitting in this taxi on the curb without moving anywhere. But it’s kind of nice. 

“So you’re a painter?” His eyebrows pull together, tense, a small detail that Kazunari only notices because he’s learned how to read the room out of pure desperation. He smiles a little wider to make up for it. 

“Yeah! It’s kind of like my passion…” 

His eyes dart around the cab, giving it the quick go-round he didn’t think to do while first sheltering from the rain. There’s a dark sweatshirt sitting in the front seat with a cheaply printed logo, crackly with white bits falling off, that he’s seen before. 

Kazunari gasps, throwing a hand over his mouth like Ke$ha just invited him to a private tea party. He points at the sweatshirt. 

“O-M-G. Did you go to Fuko? That’s Fuko, right? Or am I getting old and blind?” 

“Huh? Yeah. I’m surprised you recognize it. Did you go to Fuko?”

Now that the puzzle pieces have been smashed together haphazardly like a toddler first learning how to waste his parent’s money, Cute Taxi Boy looks a lot more familiar to Kazunari. He chides himself for forgetting a face. 

“I did, and I def remember seeing you in the halls at least once or twice! Oh my god, is that a coincidence or what? It’s like destiny.” He claps his hands together and bounces in the back seat, to which the driver laughs again. 

“I wouldn’t go that far, but… yeah, it’s a weird coincidence. I’m Tsuzuru Minagi, if that rings any bells.” 

It’s relieving to finally get a name for his new friend. They’re friends now, aren’t they? They’ve got the whole high school connection, and Tsuzuru’s even being nice enough to just sit and hang out with him here even though he could kick him out for a customer that actually has somewhere to go. Definitely friends. 

Kazunari leans forward so that Tsuzuru doesn’t have to crane his neck so much from the driver’s seat. With the doors closed, stuck together in this little cab, they manage to have privacy in the middle of the busy street. It doesn’t feel like they’re sitting amongst a crowd, since every face passing by is covered under the shade of an umbrella. 

The rain is incessant. He can barely see past the glass. 

“I do remember you! I’m Kazunari Miyoshi, B-T-dubs, but you can call me anything, really! Tsuzuroon, it’s so hype bein’ able to meet you again like this.”

Vague memories start to filter into his mind, blurry scenes of Tsuzuru sitting at his desk, writing, writing, always writing. So he asks.

“Do you still write?”

Tsuzuru smiles and looks away, and Kazunari can read that as: _It’s complicated._

“Yeah, it’s always been my hobby. I’m really surprised that you remembered that about me. It’ll probably always be my… hobby,” and the way Tsuzuru says that makes him ache deep down, like watching wisps of a dandelion fly out of reach. 

“I still think it’s awesome that you’ve been writing for this long! Like, that’s a feat!” 

“C’mon. I don’t think what I do really compares to you. I mean, from what I gather, you’re still drawing, right? And for clients, too. Congrats on that.”

There’s a facade of politeness that’s still keeping Kazunari at a distance, or maybe Tsuzuru’s just become less abrasive since high school. But it feels like the former. It’s the customer service tone bleeding into his voice, like he’s trying to mask his real feelings with a designated script of what he’s supposed to say. 

“Thanks, man! But I really do mean it, ‘kay? I bet that you could still make it as a writer, Tsuzuroon! For realsies!”

And he does mean it, but there’s not enough weight there to convey his sincerity—they’ve only been chatting for like ten minutes, and they barely spoke the years before that. He doesn’t want it to come off as false flattery, but it probably will since he talks so casually, aha…

“Are you making fun of me?” Tsuzuru asks, raising an eyebrow. 

“No!” He waves his hands back and forth, desperate to extend as many olive branches as he can pick up without falling over in a heap. “No, no, no! I really meant it!”

“It doesn’t exactly make me feel better hearing that from someone successful like you, honestly.” 

And he has to take a second on that. 

Successful?

Is he successful?

Kazunari makes enough money (usually) to buy food and pay his rent on time, and when he doesn’t, he has enough of a following to manage quick commissions online. He’s getting by as an independent, and, well, that could be success, maybe. But it’s not exactly the lifestyle he dreamed about as a kid when the sky was the limit. 

His apartment is too small to invite people over for parties. He eats at the same desk he does his art and university work at. Sometimes the air conditioner stops working for no reason, and his landlord gives him scathing looks for having dyed hair. His Instablam following is so big now that people will send him death threats on a whim, just to be contrarian. 

He has lots of friends, but no one particularly likes him. 

Processing all of that is a little much, but regardless of how much he tries to shove it down, a wave comes crashing over him and he drowns in it. 

Tsuzuru’s silhouette wobbles in his vision.

“W-whoa, are you… crying? Ah, uh, I’m really sorry. Here, uh, I have tissues, one second. Sorry.”

Quick, make a joke to lighten the mood!

“Actually, I’m crying because I just remembered that Ke$ha exists and she’s a blessing to us all.” 

“Yeahhh, I’m nowhere near dumb enough to believe that. …Look, I’m sorry, Miyoshi. I was kind of being a dick.” Tsuzuru extends a pack of tissues. It’s cute. This one’s got a childish pattern on it, just like the towel does, with Doraemon smiling unawares at him. 

“It’s not your fault,” Kazunari says. He rubs against his eyes, willing them to stop being wet and uncomfortable, but they don’t let up. He strains to keep smiling through it, letting out a high-pitched giggle that makes him sound like a deflating jester. 

If any of his friends from university caught him like this, they’d be nice about it, but they might start avoiding him afterward. No one wants to hang out with the emotional wreck who can’t hold it together for a single conversation. 

He’d never let this happen in front of them to begin with, so why’d he have to go and break character in front of a fellow high school alumni? Ugh, cringe. 

“I’m being so cringe rn,” he mutters out loud with his actual human mouth where people (Tsuzuru) can hear him. 

“Hey… hey…” Tsuzuru looks like he’s trying to calm down a baby. He takes Kazunari’s face in one hand. It’s warm against his cheek. 

It’s so warm it almost stings. Like the first sip of hot chocolate when you’re too excited to hold yourself back, knowing it’ll burn your tongue. 

He blinks back tears.

“Full disclosure, I’ve got no idea what to say here, but… Miyoshi, if you need to get something off your back, I’m willing to listen. I know I’m just some guy you know from high school you happened to bump into, but seriously. I can keep a secret if you need me to.”

He places his hand over Tsuzuru’s. The warmth is spreading through his skin like watercolors mixing together, bleeding a bold path across his canvas. 

Tsuzuru shivers. “…Your hand is really cold.”

“Aha, I’ve got you to warm me up, babe.” 

“B-babe?!” 

Kazunari tugs his scarf off and swaddles Tsuzuru in it. He fumbles the attempt at first, a mess of limbs bumping against everything in his little taxi, but Tsuzuru gets sick of sitting by so he grabs the thing himself and begrudgingly wraps it around… both of their necks. 

It’s weird not being on the initiating side of this, moreover, it’s weird having it done without an ounce of jokiness behind it. No haha, just kidding, unless? Tsuzuru just… does it. 

The tips of his ears burn against the cold air.

“You’re such a romantic, Tsuzuroon.”

“I’m not trying to be romantic. I’m trying to keep you from getting frostbite. And you should drink some water since you cried.”

“Is your love language telling people to hydrate? Are you a Libra?”

“If you don’t stop talking like that, you’re gonna find out my hate language.”

Despite the harsh words, Tsuzuru’s smiling while he rolls his eyes. 

Falling into this kind of banter comes as naturally to Kazunari as painting. The gap in time between their last meeting and now didn’t matter as much as he thought it would. Instead, it feels like they last saw each other yesterday, and they’re just continuing a conversation that was put on pause. 

“…I don’t think I’m happy with how my life’s turned out,” spills from his throat. Tsuzuru blinks, then nods. 

“I mean… I get what that feels like.” He gestures to the car’s interior. 

“You shouldn’t, though! You should be some mega-famous writer making bank, like Yukio Mishima.”

“I get that you’re complimenting me but I have pretty mixed feelings about Mishima and his work. Also, he’s dead, so he’s no longer ‘making bank.’”

They share a quiet laugh at that. Kazunari is frozen and overheating all at once, but he wants to stay here in this little world they’ve formed to see which sensation will win out. He rubs his hands together in his lap.

Tsuzuru’s not just cute, but rather pretty when examined up close. It’d be nice if they’d gone to the same university and had a meet cute on campus. Not that this hasn’t been great, but he probably wouldn’t have made an emotional fool of himself if he’d been chilling in his studio instead. 

“I, uh, don’t talk about my feelings like this most of the time. Are you sure you wanna listen? I prommy I won’t be mad if you change your mind!”

“…Prommy?”

“Y’know, like I promise. But I prommy.”

Tsuzuru gives him a look built on years and years of experience as a stern-but-loving older brother. It says he can’t get out of this one. 

“Just keep talking, Miyoshi.”

It takes a few seconds of silence to collect his thoughts into presentable words, but he obliges.

“When I was a kid, I wanted to be so much more than what I am now. I had… dreams and stuff, y’know? Like no one had told me at that point that my options were gonna be limited, so I’d go around telling my teachers that I was gonna be an artist, a chef, an astronaut, an actor, and the prime minister all at once. Everything sounded cool.

But then you grow up—LOL, I mean, I still feel like a kid even though I’m almost twenty-one ngl—and you have to commit to something.

And, and I’m really scared that this is it for me. And like I’ve missed my chance to be… what I wanna be?”

Oh god, this is way too much to be dumping out of nowhere. Kazunari gnaws at his lip and avoids looking at Tsuzuru, wary of what he imagines to be a judging gaze that’ll tell him to grow the fuck up already. 

Tsuzuru takes his face in one hand again, gently pulling him to look. His face is stern, like he thought it’d be, but… He’s taking it seriously. There’s no pity, no judgement. Kazunari almost starts crying again. 

“I don’t think it’s too late for you. For either of us, actually.”

He brushes his thumb over Kazunari’s tear-stained cheek with a smile that says he knows the feeling. 

“I get tired all the time, these days, and my brothers are always getting on my ass for not sleeping enough. It feels like there’ll never be a day when I have the time or energy to do what I really love. But it’s just a feeling, right? No one knows what’ll actually happen in their future. And I… I really want to do what I love. To be a playwright and see my work on Veludo Way. So I have to keep going, even if it takes me my whole life to get there, and then… I’ll be glad I stuck it out. So all of that—the same goes for you.”

“…You’re really sweet, Tsuzuroon.” 

When Kazunari closes his eyes, he can almost see a future for himself, some other universe where he gave up his heart, having faith that the people around him would help carry it, a world where those he loves love him back. Those smiles sparkle against the backs of his eyelids like fireworks. 

He opens his eyes with a newfound determination. 

“…I’m gonna give you my home address, ‘kay? I think I’ve got some major stuff to sort out.” A laugh. He sniffles. 

“Oh! Yeah!” He yanks his hand back like he touched a burning stovetop, or like he suddenly became aware of how weirdly intimate this scene has been. Tsuzuru’s blushing pink all the way to his ears. The scarf falls from his shoulders, leaving Kazunari alone in its embrace.

“You’re super cute when you blush! Can I take a pic? I need a selfie with you like right now.” Never mind that his phone is dead. Maybe he can borrow Tsuzuru’s. 

“Is that really what you’re thinking about after all that serious talk? Anyway, shush, I have to focus on driving now.” 

“Aww, okay.”

…He feels lighter after that conversation, even though he’s always been afraid that acknowledging the phantom in the back of his mind would make it grow ten times its size and overwhelm him. Having Tsuzuru there to listen helped him fight against the anxiety, until the existential phantom was no more than a child’s idea of a monster under the bed. 

The rain beats against the windows in a musical lilt, the sky is clouded over in monochrome, and Kazunari decides he doesn’t have to make a decision. 

And when their yellow taxi arrives at his tiny apartment, he invites Tsuzuru in for coffee.

**Author's Note:**

> i like them thanks for listening to my ted talk. leave a comment if you, too, are gripped by existential angst and/or are gay


End file.
